Hierarchien und Netzwerke

Michael Schuster von System One im Interview mit Mario Sixtus aka “der elektrische Reporter”, der Videocast ist hier.

Wer seine Freizeit in den Weiten des Web mit all seinen neuen, kollaborativen Tools und sozialen Netzen verbringt, seine Brötchen hingegen in einem mittleren oder großen Unternehmen verdient, erlebt jeden Tag erneut einen Kulturschock.

Statt leichtgewichtiger, moderner Web-Technologien, herrschen in Unternehmensnetzen nach wie vor Gigabyteschwere, umständliche Anwendungen, von denen kaum jemand weiß, wie man sie bedient oder warum sie überhaupt angeschafft wurden.

Mehr dazu im Handelsblatt:

Das Internet hat sein disruptives Potenzial bislang nur in Ansätzen gezeigt. „Diese Veränderungen werden nicht vor Unternehmen Halt machen“ […] die fortschreitende Vernetzung [wird] unser aller Denken beeinflussen. […] Das Denken und Handeln in strengen, quasimilitärischen Strukturen entspräche nicht unserer Natur und sei der Funktionsweise des Denkapparates entgegengerichtet.

Enterprise 2.0 – Through the backdoor

Michael Schuster of System One offers another spin on adaption and implementation issues, the role that social networks play, the uptaking of social software and more:

How long are enterprises going to withstand the pressure from their employees that illegally install tools, use external services and setup things like wikis without caring about corporate security policies or the like? I hear from so many people who are not happy with the applications that they have, that it is very likely that those who are eager to work with efficient, slim tools are going to find a workaround and (even worse from a company viewpoint) introduce that to their colleagues and to other teams.

This sounds reminiscent of the maverick, bottom-up uses that bypass conventional IT structures (and governance alike), e.g. when employees actually use external tools like webmailers, as described in this article by the NYT. Well, people want to forward their work email to Webmail (so that they can access it from home, when doing extra work) anyway. Consequently we need policies that don’t interfere with the actual ways people work – and Enterprise 2.0 implementations must be well aware of both IT governance policies and workers needs.

Knowledge Management 2.0 (Again)

Eclectic Bill on the difference between Web 2.0 and Knowledge Management 2.0, triggered by this comment by David Weinberger in KMWorld:

[…] Web 2.0 is not a disruptive set of technologies but just the “continuous and incremental changes” as the Web has evolved in popularity and usage. The web has always been collaborative from the beginning and the new technologies just make it easier to collaborate.

[…] KM 1.0 was all about “managing and controlling information environments” while KM 2.0 is “bottom-up, participatory, rapid innovation, more mixing up and and mashing of information.” […] KM today is a decentralized group of methods and technologies that is very different from the IT-focused centralized group of applications.

He goes on expressing his concerns that

[…] KM 2.0 will suffer from being too-closely associated with the latest technology. Even though IT applications help enable KM, it is more than the software. You can practice much of KM without technology because it is people that create knowledge – not computers. This collaboration between people is what makes KM work. But with the focus on Web 2.0 and its collaborative technologies, KM 2.0 will be confused with the Web 2.0 tools. And as these tools become outdated or fail to live up to the hype, KM 2.0 will suffer much KM 1.0 suffered during the early 1990s. There is more to KM than the tools and the KM community needs to stress that point.

Yes, it’s about people, not about technologies … see my posts here and here for further evidence.

Fortschreitende Akzeptanz oder andauernde Innovationslücke?

Die Akzeptanz von Social Software unter den Fortune 500 Unternehmen in den USA ist groß. Dies ist das extrem zusammengefasste Ergebnis einer (statistisch vernünftig angelegten und durchgeführten) Studie, die das Center for Marketing Research der University of Massachusetts im Dezember 2006 durchführte (erfahren via Randgänge).

Hier das pdf der Studie, und einige Auszüge aus dem Executive Summary:

The hype is real.

The social media revolution is coming to the business world. […] the question has been, when, and even if, business will start to embrace the powerful technologies of social media?
[…] this research proves conclusively that social media is coming to the business world and sooner than many anticipated.
[…] corporate familiarity and usage of social media is racing far ahead of what many have predicted.
[…] From familiarity, the survey moved into the companies’ actual usage of social media.
[…] social media are far more widespread than anticipated

und besonders das hier:

Not only is this widespread adoption being driven by strong familiarity but also from the recognized critical role of social media to a company’s future success in today’s online world.
[…] And where these fast-growing, innovative companies lead certainly the corporate world will follow.

Fände ich gut, ist aber unwahrscheinlich. Das hier trifft die Realität mehr:

The Fortune 500 companies are very likely to be atleast a decade behind on technology. It is easier for CIO’s to stick with what was done before and works, even if there are better choices out there. Most big companies are very risk averse. The new dynamics of enterprise applications require a dramatic rethinking of business and technology models for sellers.

Dave Girouard von Google sekundiert in Networkworld, via Mike Gotta and Nicholas Carr:

Innovation is happening in the consumer world. Enterprise software is entirely bereft of soul. It is designed for business not for humans.

Interessanter Widerspruch zwischen Studie und diesen Aussagen – das ist ein Problem – oder auch gar kein Problem … schließlich sind Welten zwischen “darüber reden” und “es tun”

Auf jeden Fall wird diese Veranstaltung interessant – ich bin dabei und bin auf die Diskussionen gespannt.